taken with a 250 ftx (factory load) at about 80-85 yds, through the boiler room.

rib going in, rib coming out, and left a mess of hamburger in the middle. Got both lungs, liver and clipped the heart. Deer went about 40 yds and fell over. Bullet performed perfectly.

friend of the family who hunts with us also broke in his 450 this year and scored both an 8 and 7 point as well.

we do hunt in the unrestricted firearms zone, and both have full power bottleneck cartridges we would typically hunt with. However with the rule changes here in michigan and both of us having access to properties in the restricted firearms zone in southern michigan, we decided to pick up a 450 bushmaster to hunt with as well.

total for the season for us on my family's property is as follows

2 does3x - 6 point - including my sister in laws first buck7 point8 point

sadly this year we had two lost deer due to the rain on wednesday as well - a doe and a spike. both were given up on after several hours of tracking in the rain, well into the dark hours of the evening. Not much you can do when you lose all traces of blood due to constant rain unfortunatly. It sure wasnt for a lack of trying to recover them. the doe that was lost was shot with a 12gauge slug at like 45 yds and the spike was hit with a 7mm mag at about 120 yds. both trails were lost in deep cover - one in among white pine stands, the other in autumn olives and poplar grove along the swamp.

i even had my Thermal handheld out there trying to find the downed animals too hoping for stumble upon them type of recovery :/

Congrats and I’m sure the hunters who shot the lost deer felt horrible! But with the amount of rain we got was I’m sure the blood went away very fast. We’ve had some easy winters and great springs here in Michigan the last couple of years. You’d think the bucks would have better antler growth.

Can’t wait to be able to get back out hunting again. Have a friend who bought 320 acres of land and fields for crops, gonna have to try and be ready to hunt by next year! Southern Michigan too

every deer that went into the check was 1.5 years old. the 8 and 7 were both pretty good sized, the 6's were all typical "basket" racks. overall we had a nice crop of bucks this year - much of which i attribute to like yous aid the mild winter year before last. we had a HUGE crop of twins running around last summer. this year too, so i expect to see another good crop of buckx next season too.

there were a couple very nice bucks taken on connecting property's to ours this season. the neighbor's showed me some amazing pics - we're talking wall hanger class deer. this is fairly typical though that us or one(several) of the connecting neighbor's connect with a good dominant prime buck pretty much every year.